ICICI Bank share price today: ICICI Bank shares fell as much as 2% in the early deals on Thursday after the bank's board decided to probe the allegations against CEO Chanda Kochhar.

ICICI Bank share price today: ICICI Bank shares fell as much as 2% in the early deals on Thursday after the bank’s board decided to probe the allegations against CEO Chanda Kochhar. India’s third-largest bank by assets, ICICI Bank’s shares extended losses after opening marginally down on Thursday and declined to nearly a 4-week low. ICICI Bank’s board of directors’ decision to have an independent enquiry into the allegations of impropriety against CEO Chanda Kochhar came after over two months of reports. A whistleblower had alleged ‘quid pro quo’ and ‘conflict of interest’ between Chanda Kochhar’s husband Deepak Kochhar and Venugopal Dhoot, Chairman and Managing Director, Videocon.

“The board of directors, at its meeting held on 29 May 2018, decided to institute an enquiry to be headed by an independent and credible person, to examine and enquire into an anonymous whistle blower complaint, disclosing certain infromation, alleging in substance that bank’s MD & CEO had not adhered to provisions relating to ‘code of conduct’ of the bank and legal and regulatopry provisions relating to ‘conflict of interest’ over a period of time, as also allegaing quid pro quo in the course of her work in dealing with certain customers/borrowers of the bank,” ICICI Bank said in an exchange filing on 30 May 2018.

The stock of ICICI Bank tumbled 2.07% to a day’s bottom of Rs 279.35 on BSE while the stock went down by 1.97% to a day’s low of Rs 279.3 on NSE on Thursday. Shares of ICICI Bank were the biggest losers among bottom five scrips on BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty on Thursday. “Conclusive outcome either from the proposed independent inquiry by the board or by the CBI will help in alleviating a key uncertainty for the stock,” Reuters reported citing a note of unidentified Citi analysts. The stock of ICICI Bank was the second-most traded stock among all the scrips of Nifty 50. Up until 11:53 am, more than 1.83 crore equity shares of ICICI Bank were traded on National Stock Exchange alone.

ICICI Bank’s board said that the scope of the enquiry would be comprehensive in nature which will include all relevant matters emerging “out of and in the course of examination of the facts.” “The enquiry would also cover all connected matters in the course of the investigation to bring the matter to a final close,” ICICI Bank said in a statement.

“In keeping with the whistleblower policy of the bank, board has mandated its audit committee to take all further actions in the matter to operationalize this decision – including in particular, appointment of an independent and credible person as head of the enquiry, determining the terms of reference of the enquiry, the period which will be covered by the enquiry etc. The audit committee will also, in consultation with the head of the enquiry, make arrangements to assist him with independent legal and other professional support as may be required,” ICICI Bank statement added.